Singapore built a solar farm on seawater because there simply was not enough land to keep expanding solar power on the island. Off Woodlands, along the Straits of Johor, more than 13,000 solar panels float across the coastal waters, forming a 5 MWp installation designed to cope with waves, currents, wind and seawater. The engineering challenge was obvious: keep a huge floating structure stable in a moving marine environment. But another problem came from a much smaller source. Barnacles began attaching themselves to the floating infrastructure, turning marine biology into an unexpected engineering concern.
